


Late at night when I like who I am, in the dark where I’m finally me

by andaleduardo



Series: Moments when Richie Tozier felt like there was hope [4]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Body Positivity, Car rides, Eddie is in love, Eddie is whipped, Eddie loves him during all hours, Insecure Richie, M/M, Night Adventures, Richie is insecure during the day, The losers are the best friends, body negativity, but - Freeform, he feels more alive at night, richie is too but he has some issues to deal with before he can recognize that, self doubt, self hate, they all love and support each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 18:51:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andaleduardo/pseuds/andaleduardo
Summary: Richie Tozier thinks he’s prettier at night. Eddie agrees, but for different reasons.orRichie is insecure of his looks and Eddie is in love with him.





	Late at night when I like who I am, in the dark where I’m finally me

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer, I'm not saying Eddie could cure Richie's self-hate and doubt just because he is in love with him.  
Another disclaimer, don't do car races.

Richie Tozier is prettier at night.

If he said that out-loud it might get him a few chucks, but it’s no joke to him. He knows it’s true, somehow.   
It’s a hidden fact that reveals itself to him in small things. When he catches his own reflection on a store window or when he gets the passenger seat in his friends’ cars and can’t help but stare at himself on the side mirror, for example.

See, daylight does little for Richie besides exposing the true self he so much despises.

During the day, the acne weights on his face, which is constantly oily. The color of his skin brightens up to blinding levels and his hair is so dark that the contrast against the sunlight makes the little wiry curls more noticeable, like a cloud made of fuzz settled around his head.

During the day, his bones are too bony and his height is too high, his laugh is too laughable and his jokes are … not.   
Under the sun his feet are too big, his hands don’t fit on his wrists, his lips crack at the corners because his teeth don’t seem to fit inside. The crook of his nose gets worse, there’s always an eyelash poking at his eyeball and a constant itch _everywhere_ that seems impossible to scratch.

In the day time Richie Tozier is his true self, and he has only one mission. To hide.

So he laughs a little less, tones the jokes down. Stops himself from moving and fidgeting and jumping around when his muscles ache for it. Anything to become more invisible.

Needless to say, by the end of the day Richie misses smiling. Misses feeling good in his own body, fitting in his own shape. He misses being okay.

Those bad times make it almost impossible to remember what it’s like to feel good, but as soon as the sky begins to shift into more colors besides blue, his heart starts beating with purpose and the first genuine smile of the day makes an appearance.

There are so many great things that come along with night time... And all those things can be the same as the ones he does during the day, mundane things, but they shift into some thrilling adventure for Richie.

Like riding a bus and somehow not caring about the other passengers staring at you. Cracking a joke and being sure it’ll be funny, and if it’s not, then it doesn’t bother him. Going outside and not fearing judgment, simply because the dark hides him better.

At night, his skin tone gets softer, bluer, and reflects every piece of light that meets the surface of his body. The acne is never there, no excess oil pools in his pores. Sometimes there’s a layer of sweat due to all the adrenaline that travels his veins between 8 p.m. and the moment he goes to sleep, but it’s okay, Richie thinks. It means he’s finally alive.

At night, the dark curls blend with the dark sky, every strand of hair slowly begins to fit into place. When he passes his fingers through it, he knows he owns every curl with confidence. His bones and muscles slowly relax, fit inside his skin so there’s no more bumps or tension points and he can finally let loose.   
At night, he falls in love with his height for he can finally tuck his friends under his arms, and place his chin on top of their heads without feeling ashamed of it, of outsiders’ eyes.

His laugh never feels too loud, never feels too much. It becomes contagious and there is nothing more gratifying than sending the ones you love into a fit of giggles that could lull him to sleep.

Under the moonlight, he doesn’t notice the size of his feet because at night, Richie Tozier doesn’t care at all. He jumps around in the street with good company surrounding his steps. He hugs when he craves it and he fidgets when he has to, and no one else there will order him to stop or call him a nuisance.

His lips still crack at the corners, but this time his teeth fit inside. The smiles are the ones behind the cracks, and the laughs are probably to blame, too. But that’s the price of happiness, and Richie takes it gladly.  
The crook of his nose is probably still there, but it doesn’t seem to bother him a single bit when he catches his reflection. It seems so much smaller, so much his, that he lets it be.

The one thing that seems to stay the exact same are his hands. Even at night, they’re still too big to fit in his wrists, but they always fit perfectly in the hands of Eddie Kaspbrak, and that alone is the best thing he could ever find about himself.

At night, Richie Tozier is less horrible to look at. And he doesn’t know the science behind it, but like he said, the side mirror near the passenger seat of Stan’s car never lies to him.   
That’s where he finds himself right now. A short ride to the Aladdin with the people he loves most in the world just to go see a shitty movie on a Thursday night.

These plans on school nights are harder to achieve. Most times there’s always someone missing. But not tonight, somehow, all of them came. Mike and Eddie are currently on the backseat, chatting mindlessly while Stan takes the longer route to the Aladdin, Ben’s car following behind. They always take a longer route to whichever destination they chose because, well, driving at night is therapeutic for everyone.

Richie’s mind floats between the soft music Stan always chooses and the friendly chitchat coming from the backseat, but his true attention is on that mirror. He honestly sees someone completely different staring back at him than the person he sees on his own bathroom.

It’s the dark, he thinks. _It hides him better._

At that precise moment, Ben’s car drives past Stan’s. All the windows down and Beverly’s screams filling up the empty road.

“You losers!” She calls out. Richie’s heart speeds up.

“Oh, they’re asking for it.” He says to one in particular. But when Stan’s car keeps getting behind, Richie turns to him with an incredulous expression. “What are you waiting for, Stan the Man? It’s a race, speed up!”

“Richie I’m not going to-”

Richie interrupts him by starting to drum both hands on the dashboard, loudly. “GO! GO GO GO!-”

“OKAY! Stop hitting my damn car!” He screams back while pressing down on the accelerator. As if on cue, Eddie and Mike start cheering and clapping their hands on the back of Richie and Stan’s seats. Richie laughs and joins the cheering, feeling complete when Eddie’s hands settle on his shoulders and squeeze affectionately.

The night goes on too fast for Richie’s liking. Most nights do.

The shitty comedy movie went by in a rush, didn’t get a lot of chucks out of Richie but it was still an amazing hour and a half because he was in the company of his friends. And probably because Eddie held his hand through the whole thing, but Richie tries not to give it a lot of meaning, otherwise he’ll go insane.

The best part comes next, though. None of them want to part for the night, so they drag the moment out. It’s nearly midnight by the time they come out to the Aladdin’s back parking lot, empty as usual. Some of them holding half empty boxes of popcorn, some of them yawning, none of them wanting to leave. Everyone except Bill and Richie sits down on the sidewalk that lines the building.

Richie? He drags Bill by the hands, sending the boy’s popcorn flying, and before anyone sees it coming they’re ballroom dancing in the asphalt, sneakers being scratched by the pavement every time one of them pulls an abrupt move. The others laugh, Mike and Bev start to sing, sort off, classic songs for them to dance to, and Richie fails to notice how intensely he is being observed by one of his best friends.

Richie Tozier _is_ prettier at night.

If Eddie ever said that out loud, he wouldn’t hear the end of it until the day he died.

He doesn’t exactly know why it happens, it’s not as if Richie becomes more attractive. That’s certainly not it. Richie is beautiful at any time of day and Eddie will take those words down with him to the grave.

It’s more… in the way he acts.

See, during the day, he looks at Richie and sees a boy who is uncomfortable. A boy who tries to tone everything down to please the others. A boy who will shrink into his own body to avoid bumping into people because he loses sense of his size once he’s relaxed and careless. During the day, Eddie Kaspbrak looks at Richie and wonders where his true self went. Wonders why he always looks sad and acts unlike himself and how can he try and make him come back.

During the day, Richie Tozier is not his true self. But Eddie loves him just as deeply.

Sometimes, Eddie wishes he could be braver. Braver enough to show Richie that it’s okay.

If he could, he would place both hands on the sides of Richie’s face, where the acne tends to get worse. And since his hands aren’t big enough to cover the forehead at the same time, maybe he could pull Richie closer and kiss his hairline. He would drag his hands upwards, then, to try and tame those curls and give them love, like they deserve.

If Eddie was braver, he would hold Richie’s hands more often and remind him that they look perfect against his own. He would paint the whole world with Richie’s skin color just to show him it was beautiful, and he would consider telling him that the heavy freckles decorating his whole body are one of the reasons Eddie tunes out in all of his classes. He could spend hours counting all of them and picking out the different tones they take.

If Eddie wasn’t so weak... he would love to touch his nose to Richie’s just to prove him that it doesn’t matter the way it curves, what matters is the way it feels when both of their noses touch. He would place his head under Richie’s chin more frequently because he knows Richie loves it, he knows it makes him change his mind about being too tall and too skinny and too bony to be worthy of physical affection. He’d love to show him otherwise, that his bony elbows and knees can be just as soft as Eddie’s. He’d tell him that he hates when Richie gets hurt but that he would never trade the moments when he gets to put a band-aid on him or the times he gets to curl his hands on his elbows to pull him into a hug.

If Eddie wasn’t so weak, he would try to wipe away all the insecurities Richie has about his mouth by simply kissing him.

But those are many _if’s _and Eddie came to the conclusion that Richie wasn’t the only one holding back who he truly was. Just like Richie, Eddie feels a little braver at night. Maybe because the world seems to be empty besides the seven of them. Because they almost believe all the evil goes to sleep the same way they should.

Richie Tozier is prettier at night simply because he is himself. And Eddie loves every bit of it.

Loves to watch him from afar and close up. Loves to laugh and giggle at Richie’s funny manners and childish acts because _that’s who he is._ Loves him now, dipping Bill while they dance and almost banging the boy’s head on the floor, and loves him every other time, even during the day when it hurts to watch him shrink himself into nothing of importance.

There’s a lot to love about him.

Time flies quicker when he gets lost in Richie’s enjoyment, and before he knows it, Eddie and the others are getting into their respective car seats. This time more tired, sleepy but happier. As usual, he sits on the back and spends most of the ride looking into the side mirror because he loves it when Richie admires himself for a bit. He deserves it.

They take the shorter way home, driving slower, with the windows down and the night’s cool air keeping their hairs out of their faces. Stan doesn’t turn the soft music he likes on, they talk. Richie’s voice gets softer when they head home, it always does.

Once they see Ben’s car turning in the opposite direction to drop off Bill, Eddie leans in closer to Richie’s head-rest, almost hitting his head on the inside of the car.

He whispers. “Do you want to spend the night?” Turning his head to somehow look at Eddie, Richie smiles, and this time it reaches his eyes. He nods. Eddie’s lips break into a smile of his own as he pulls back and rests against his seat properly.

Richie Tozier might think he’s prettier at night, but Eddie can’t wait to open his eyes and look at him first thing in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, yet anoter, self input on Richie Tozier.  
Please consider leaving me a comment, they are my writing fuel!   
Love everyone who supports me and my writing <3


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